Bringing Knowledge into Health Search

The new enhanced Bing Health search experience is live – focusing on further enabling people to quickly get relevant information and make better decisions. We’re providing more content from new partners and augmenting instant answers with hard-to-discover data that helps users get more out of their health search experience, both on- and off-line.

Bing discovers a relevant document in its library of health resources and presents a smart summary related to the query. In addition, Bing uncovers key related topics by analyzing an index of medical sources and extracting meaningful data automatically. In this case, the user receives instant guidance through short lists of other conditions related to the query (for example, “obesity”), medications that are important to know about (for example, “insulin”) and US medical centers that are active in the field. Users may select any of these points of interest to continue their search in a new area.

A new instant answer appears, now highlighting important “patient rating” information for this hospital as collected for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that compares this hospital to the state average (in the case, the hospital is given a HIGH rating by 77% of participating patients, compared to 65% on average for all participating hospitals in the state). More detailed information on hospital comparisons can be obtained at: http://www.medicare.gov/Hospital/Search/Welcome.asp.

This new instant answer also enables users to quickly explore other nearby facilities as relevant points of interest.

Medications are also addressed with new instant answers. For example, suppose the user selects Glucophage under related medications in the “type 2 diabetes” answer above. The following answer then appears in the search results page:

First, basic questions are addressed with easy-to-understand information on key topics. For example, by selecting “What side effects may I notice?”, a user is provided with the following:

In addition, a short list of key related medications are provided – generated through another automated knowledge analysis. With the introduction of these new knowledge-oriented features, Bing is providing even more tools for users to make better decisions.

In addition to the above instant knowledge capabilities, Bing Health is covering more areas of health and better living. Try different queries like the below to get access new content from additional providers:

or:

or:

We are looking forward to the next update as Bing Health continues in its mission to enable people to make better decisions in health.

Join the conversation

This is a great service. Its better real doctors give advice rather than ones like me. Though we do have great catchphrses "great scot!" Keep up the good work, if you want a self diagnosis on the internet its hard to find a good site cos some are mixed up. A properly regulated service is needed.

6 years ago

Tom Wilson

This is really fascinating, even transformative. You've shown both the power of the semantic web and how to use it effectively. Bravo!

6 years ago

Quality Directory

Just searched for type 2 diabetes. This is marvelous! The results page shows related conditions, related medications and trusted medical facilities that treat the sickness. Great job, indeed.

6 years ago

jhaochen

The search results are indeed relevant and handy at times for health professionals and patients. Bing does distinguish itself in a new way from G in search. Well done.

One new thing can be considered in the search results is the "real world" input from the consumers, which see an increasing role in the decision making process. Use “type 2 diabetes” again, people can find hundreds and thousands of user reports on drug effectiveness and side effects at: http://www.ehealthme.com/…/type+2+diabetes. What's more, this kind of knowledge/experience is updated much more frequently than official source, like hours vs. years, and covers broader demographics and more complex patients situations.

Disclaimer: I work in the company in the link.

6 years ago

bouka55

With such moves i think the future looks bright, nolonger will people need to look for a doctor for specific health information!

6 years ago

Landon S Lang

This is really useful, way to go bing! I hope Bing will one day takeover Yahoo and maybe Google Domination.

Bookmarked on several sites and tweeted this wonderful news.

I've also written on my blog about this and how you can use this for SEO and how this will affect search.